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There's been quite a bit of bashing of WD over the last couple years. Most of it's well justified as it's pretty clear that WD functions largely as a monthly catalog for GW product.

What's baffling is people who are pining for "the good old days" of White dwarf. When were the "good old days"? I've been getting rid of my White Dwarf mags post-2000, as the 2nd edition era when I began gaming is what I'm most nostaligic about. Looking through these mid 90's issues I enjoyed the memories, but realized that that content-wise, it's not that different from today!

-There are a few how-to articles scattered over the course of a year, but not many.
-There are articles dedicated to what are now called "specialist" games, but that is only sensible, since back then those games were big-sellers for GW and were well supported.

The biggest differences seemed to be a couple of examples of free mini-games and a couple of cardboard models, though this was more the exception than the rule. Also, it was nice to see a variation in terrain and not have it all made from GW kits.

So my question is this. When was the golden age for White Dwarf? When were the pages packed with non-advertising articles and how-to's?

Most of the time, the "golden age of White Dwarf" corresponds roughly to the few years prior to, and maybe the first year after, a person begins the hobby.

It's not how much more content WD had 15 years ago, it's how much content it had (some), compared to how much hobby content is widely, freely, and immediatly avaiable online (lots).

That aside, GW did put gaming (not just hobby) content into WD. Sublists, errata, updates, new units, etc. All of that used to be in the magazine. That was a two edged sword. It was awesome because you got new gaming stuff available, but it meant that if you didn't read WD, you could be surprised by the rules an opponent springs on you.

I'd class the golden age as anything before at least 330, the rest have been 90% tosh

Maybe pre 2002. Before the internet was worth bothering with.

I would say before 2002ish as well.

Polonius wrote:Most of the time, the "golden age of White Dwarf" corresponds roughly to the few years prior to, and maybe the first year after, a person begins the hobby.

Indeed. Welcome to the nostalgia filter.

I sort of agree with Polonius BUT before 2003/2004 there was a marked difference in the quality of White Dwarf for the general hobbyist.

For instance when GW got the LOTR license you can see a lot of good hobby articles on painting and terrain making that I feel really revitalized white dwarf for a while. You don't see that really basic how to articles anymore. I know a lot of people don't like LOTR in White Dwarf but I think it extended the life / usefullness of the mag for a few years.

I had my last subscription to White Dwarf in 2004 and after that I just saw no value in continuing for the price.

White Dwarf was a great magazine up until issue 100 in my opinion, then it changed to the smaller format. Then it went inhouse and no longer featured other manufacturers, book/film reviews, rpgs,cartoon strips([see forum posting rules]!, Thrud!, veterans know what I mean), decent articles, less of the 'You need to buy this for your army or you'll never win!' type of advertising. There was always something to go back and read whereas nowadays a cursory flick through is the norm. I stopped getting it for a good few years(from issue 134, and only started again with 200) and it is just not got the wow factor any more; The lotr issue was just overkill, you don't need that kind of coverage surely?

Slipstream wrote:White Dwarf was a great magazine up until issue 100 in my opinion, then it changed to the smaller format. Then it went inhouse and no longer featured other manufacturers, book/film reviews, rpgs,cartoon strips([see forum posting rules]!, Thrud!, veterans know what I mean), decent articles, less of the 'You need to buy this for your army or you'll never win!' type of advertising. There was always something to go back and read whereas nowadays a cursory flick through is the norm. I stopped getting it for a good few years(from issue 134, and only started again with 200) and it is just not got the wow factor any more; The lotr issue was just overkill, you don't need that kind of coverage surely?

Yeah the OLD ones especially issue 80-90 were really pretty cool. But I think there were a lot of really nice ones after that too. I think the LOTR era was a pretty good era. I don't think it is overkill to have good quality painting guides, terrain, and scenarios. While they were presented as LOTR articles all of them were portable to other systems. Painting and terrain articles always help so those are pretty much self explanatory. Scenarios for LOTR can be changed to be used in 40k and mordheim rather easily. Hell you could even use them in Warhammer with a bit of work.

Slipstream wrote:White Dwarf was a great magazine up until issue 100 in my opinion, then it changed to the smaller format. Then it went inhouse and no longer featured other manufacturers, book/film reviews, rpgs,cartoon strips([see forum posting rules]!, Thrud!, veterans know what I mean), decent articles, less of the 'You need to buy this for your army or you'll never win!' type of advertising. There was always something to go back and read whereas nowadays a cursory flick through is the norm. I stopped getting it for a good few years(from issue 134, and only started again with 200) and it is just not got the wow factor any more; The lotr issue was just overkill, you don't need that kind of coverage surely?

I agree It was great magazine pre 100 for general gaming mostly RPGs. Post 100 it was great GW games magazine and continued to be so for many years. The content was varied and interesting pretty much like the product that GW was producing at the time.

This changed when GW started to focus on just the main systems sometimes to the exclusion to their specialist systems. For me this coincided with going to uni (actually just after it I think) circa 2000.

By time I got back into the hobby the Internet was more common and providing loads of alternatives. Comparatively WD looked poor and went down hill.

It seems a bit better over the last 6 months but is nothing like it was pre 230 whatever guise you preferred.

The 'good old days' were a long time ago now. I think it was good well past #100 even though it focused on their own product. They properly supported their own products and I remember issues with new Space Hulk scenarios and new tiles to cut out and stick to cardboard to use with your games. Lots of fun from the magazine. Now they just don't care, it's solely about pushing the latest product.

Slipstream wrote:White Dwarf was a great magazine up until issue 100 in my opinion, then it changed to the smaller format. Then it went inhouse and no longer featured other manufacturers, book/film reviews, rpgs,cartoon strips([see forum posting rules]!, Thrud!, veterans know what I mean), decent articles, less of the 'You need to buy this for your army or you'll never win!' type of advertising. There was always something to go back and read whereas nowadays a cursory flick through is the norm. I stopped getting it for a good few years(from issue 134, and only started again with 200) and it is just not got the wow factor any more; The lotr issue was just overkill, you don't need that kind of coverage surely?

I loved the strip where everyone was having a suprise party for Thrud and we walks into the dark room, kills everyone then the lights come on and you see the 'happy bday' banner. Classic imho.

For me the 'Golden age' was from around issue 90- until fat bloke left. 230's? around there some where. I loved the origional Tales of 4 gamers. That was a classic. Seeing how they could build a Fantasy army on a budget, it could never work the same now a days. =o[


I used to never miss a issue of WD back in the day. The all time low for me was 'The Giant issue'. Hey we made a giant, it's awsome buy it, we used 4!!!1!!1!!!11! in a battle report they didn't do much but they are awsome buy a giant, hey the giant is on the cover buy buy buy now now now!!!, Standard Bearer ; we made a giant buy it it's awsome.

The one thing I did like about that issue was they showed the 3-up which was huge and how the cut the giant into it's components. The behind the scenes with the sculptures was rather neat, but doesn't make up for the rest of that trash.

I started in 2nd edition, but I consider the issues through 3rd edition to be the 'golden age', what with Chapter Approved and the like adding stuff to the game.

I know the exact issue where WD died for me. I haven’t got the number in front of me (it was around the 220-230 mark). It was just after the 2nd Ed Sisters of Battle Codex had been released, and around the time the metal Scouts came out. GW had started doing a lot of fancy overlay and graphics in WD, and that seemed to be their focus, not content. I guess they’d hired a new graphic designer and wanted to fill every spoace with green cross-hatching on black backgrounds, pheaux-wire frames and little data-slate windows and loads of other nonsense.

Anyway, I had bought the issue because I wanted to read the Battle Report. Buying WD mostly came down to whether there was a 40K BatRep in it, or any other good content. But this battle report was a single isometric photograph of a table, lots of unnecessary graphical flare, a few comment boxes, and then each player’s summation of their actions. Wait... what? The BatReps I had grown up with had an introduction, pages where each of the players went over the choices on their army, full listings of their army, then a turn-by-turn account of the game (with maps and photos) followed by the summation. This one was just a photograph and some comments.

I never bought another WD after that until the 3rd Ed Trial Assault Rules came out. Yes, they eventually went back to the old maps’n’detail style of report, but during those dark days it was all flash and no substance.

Oddly enough I did get an issue of WD from about a year or so later as part of an eBay auction (it had some Necromunda related material – perhaps the last ever Necromunda article in WD) and was amazed that the issue was the same size as my pre-Fat Dwarf issues. I laughed. White Dwarf from 198 or 199 onwards I believe, had doubled in price and doubled in page count. Looking over the early 200’s, the teens and then this later issue, I could see that White Dwarf had slowly reverted back to its thin pre-Fat Dwarf days... with the double-the-cost price tag.

Pre issue 260for me.

Up until late 3rd edition it still had useful content.
This was pretty much before CoD and "buy our awesome terrain so you don't have to make any of your own" and all your games will look the same - just like McDonnels*.



*Actual name not used because their lawyers are worse than GWs.

The good old days were back when you got free stuff all the time through White Dwarf, like:

-Punch-out cardstock scenery like the ruined chapel, Eldar Waystone, and the jousting list complete with each knight's pavilion tents.

-Entire micro-games like Brewhouse Bash and Dark Eldar pit fighting (and don't forget the 1st edition proto-Battlefleet Gothic complete with 8 ships and all the tokens needed to play!!), and punch-out game reference sheets for Warhammer, 40K, and Mordheim.

Plus all the expansions for games like Mordheim, all the Kill-Team expansions, etc.

I loved the8-10 page Mordheim battle reports, and i never even played Mordheim.

Third edition was definitely the golden age for me with the hobby articles, chapter approved and unbiased bat reps.

This main issue with the current WD IMO is that everything is heavily focused on selling the “latest release” models, from the articles, bat reps and tutorials. It’s not even subtle either as the magazine uses a “slap in the face” marketing approach (i.e. buy our models now!!11). The older issues had more of a focus on things outside of the “latest release” models such as errata, tale of gamers, unbiased bet reps, fluff articles etc. Even still, the current magazine lacks the depth and “meat” that the older one seemed to have.

A lot of people try to argue that WD has dramatically improved recently (due to more errata/game content). My counter argument to this is that WD has improved but only by a single digit percentage and still has an incredibly long way to go before it loses its dish rag catalogue status and becomes as good as it was during third edition.

I definitely would like to see more errata/rules in WD. Any issues of obtaining backorders could easily be solved via offering a digital service for purchasing back issues (which is what PP does) as well as having a WD Annual.

Polonius wrote:Most of the time, the "golden age of White Dwarf" corresponds roughly to the few years prior to, and maybe the first year after, a person begins the hobby.

I bought a dozen issues of WD pretty recently that were circa 2000 and they were really, really awesome reading, full of all sorts of good stuff. I started playing in 2009 or so. While I'm sure nostalgia is a factor, I don't think that's all of it.

I'm not sure what edition that corresponds to, but it was apparently a much better product back then by any measure. There were all sorts of scenarios, guides for making terrain and conversions - there was a 6 page article where a guy made an entire WHFB Orc for less than $10, using mostly some orange crates. Stuff like that.

I'd say the golden age for me was about 98~03ish. It started to get bad when LoTR stuff came out.

...actually everything started to get bad around that time.

AegisGrimm wrote:The good old days were back when you got free stuff all the time through White Dwarf, like:

-Punch-out cardstock scenery like the ruined chapel, Eldar Waystone, and the jousting list complete with each knight's pavilion tents.

-Entire micro-games like Brewhouse Bash and Dark Eldar pit fighting (and don't forget the 1st edition proto-Battlefleet Gothic complete with 8 ships and all the tokens needed to play!!), and punch-out game reference sheets for Warhammer, 40K, and Mordheim.

This! I loved those little things! I really miss card terrain. I still have the church and waystone and jousting set. I don't have any white dwarves past the release of the ork bfg fleet, and at that point I think it still has nice content. Between then and now I have no idea what happened, not having read any white dwarves from then until the Dark Eldar 5th edition release, but it seems to have gone to hell.

Having started in the early 260's (when I was about 5 I could read really well for my age, and the pretty pictures...), I can say that WD stopped being cool around 320 - 325. It began to become a printed window for products after the 'Giant' issue, and after 325 it had fully integrated into that role. When they replaced information on the spine of the book with quotes, that was the final nail in the coffin. I still get subscriptions as it is one of the sole sources of wargaming I ever get anymore, but I read the old ones loads, for ideas, for bits of interesting stuff, for how-tos, for conversions, for background etc etc etc....

Lord of Timbraxia wrote:Having started in the early 260's (when I was about 5 I could read really well for my age, and the pretty pictures...), I can say that WD stopped being cool around 320 - 325. It began to become a printed window for products after the 'Giant' issue, and after 325 it had fully integrated into that role. When they replaced information on the spine of the book with quotes, that was the final nail in the coffin. I still get subscriptions as it is one of the sole sources of wargaming I ever get anymore, but I read the old ones loads, for ideas, for bits of interesting stuff, for how-tos, for conversions, for background etc etc etc....

I think so as well.. a perfectly readable magazine until the early 300's. There was the point when the editor of the magazine became 'The White Dwarf', and yes then of course the famous 'Giant issue', the most ironically named WD ever.

There is no reason at all that printed media can't survive alongside the internet. I still purchase magazines regularly from other areas (music, film, motoring mags etc.) and while a couple of them have died off in general the standard of journalism has remained very good. The problem is that this is what differentiates them from content that is freely available online. I can pick up a copy of Total Film, and enjoy reading the articles and full page reviews, knowing that someone who can write well, indeed has made a career out of it, has probably spent the evening sitting down to write the article. This contrasts with most (not all) of internet blogs and review sites, compounded by the simply enjoyment of putting your feet up after work and lazing on the sofa with a magazine in your hands.

White Dwarf used to be one of these magazines, but these days half of the information it carries are photos which have been availably on the internet for weeks, and there is not actually any journalistic content that can differentiate it from anything that 10 seconds with google could otherwise achieve. They have taken a stab at it with Jervis Johnson (doing it for free off of his own back? It wouldn't surprise me), but judging from the last few issues and discussion of tape measures he is obviously running short of material.

Others have mentioned that it barely serves as a toilet read these days, let alone something you can sit down with and relax for an hour, and I think I agree with them (allowing for a variation in the time necessary for a toilet read!) Part of me would feel really sad if it died, but on the other hand the 'magazine' we have now is a shambling, zombified version of what it once was, it's pretty clothes not disguising the stink of it its crappy innards, and I sometimes think it would be better for all concerned if someone put a bullet through its brain.

notprop wrote:I agree It was great magazine pre 100 for general gaming mostly RPGs. Post 100 it was great GW games magazine and continued to be so for many years. The content was varied and interesting pretty much like the product that GW was producing at the time.

This changed when GW started to focus on just the main systems sometimes to the exclusion to their specialist systems. For me this coincided with going to uni (actually just after it I think) circa 2000.

I agree - I remember buying it from about 155 (around the first Warhammer Boxed Set with Elves and Goblins) to about 230 (when Specialist Games were still going strong) and it had a fun tone and a lot of hobby content. Even in that time, a lot of the hobby content turned from the dry-but-very detailed wordy battle reports, tactica and rules to the colourful, visual Tales of Four Gamers, Modelling and Terrain articles etc.

When I got back into the game in around 2003/4 I remember WD being a lot less useful. In fact, I think I'd place the change at the moment LOTR was released....

I loved White Dwarf in the early to mid 2000's, when they used to actually feature peoples armies and conversions in the magazine, the battle reports weren't hideously predictable, they had some actual fluff, and they used to encourage modelling and terrain building. Ever since that it's basically become a monthly catalogue, and an exercise in "LOOK SHINY BUY DIS".

My first issue was 100 - that just got me hooked, it had a WFRP adenture featuring pygmies, dreadnought rules for 40k and extra rules for WH Siege (including rules for dropping beehives off the walls onto attackers!).

I wasn't around back then. I only get Whtie Dwarf for the Tournament listings, other than that I don't even read it.

Thanks for all the input folks. Taking a second comparison between my collection which ranges mostly from 160-230 (2nd edtion 40k era) and current WD, I may have been a bit dismissive of some of the positives of my collection. It is clearly a GW promo tool, but the tales of 4 gamers, card buildings, battle reports and modeling articles are certainly in it's favor.

I do find it a bit interesting how some folks saw glimmers of goodness in certain parts of the 2000's wheras I found little that entire decade to convince me to keep those issues.

I see in my post that I got the dreaded 'see forum posting rules' message and I admit that it took my a while to work out what I'd said. I'd just like to point out that the offending word that the mods have omitted was infact the name of the Goblin in the cartoon strip and I was not making any racist/offensive comment! You can see for yourselves if you can hunt down an old WD.

In and around 130, where they released the rules for an ENTIRE GAME SYSTEM (Confrontation), all of which would eventually become Necromunda

They also used to release new rules for Space Hulk almost monthly, so that any race could play.

Can't imagine them doing that now

The really early issues (my collection starts at 13 or 14 I think) were a delight - D&D, Runequest, Traveller, you name it, it was covered. Then Rogue Trader came along and morphed into W40K, and from 90 through to the early 200's were my favourites. Then things go downhill, and i went from buying 12 issues a year to what seems 1 every 12 years; I'm not a fan of the sales brochure that WD has become.